Monterey City Hall (Monterey Herald)
MONTEREY – Affordable housing and water – you can’t have one without the other. It’s a stark reality cities on the Monterey Peninsula know well, with the latter always seeming in short supply. But the city of Monterey seems determined to make sure the tap doesn’t run out, for either resource.
The possible solution? Regional collaboration.
At the Monterey City Council’s regular meeting Tuesday night, the Peninsula’s perennial disjunction – not enough water and not enough housing – was back on the agenda. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom, as is often the case when it comes to hopes of feasible development. Instead, the possibility of finding a path forward was met with optimism, thanks to a handful of alternatives introduced by city staff that, if seen through, could open up opportunities for the city.
All it would take is some extra help from an unlikely source: the Marina Coast Water District, which – though not Monterey’s main purveyor of water – might have the capacity to augment the city’s supply, at least according to early talks between district and city staff.
“We are in a situation where we cannot win … using the existing resources that we have. It’s like the game of tic-tac-toe,” Monterey City Manager Hans Uslar said at Tuesday’s meeting. “Once we know how to play, you always arrive at a situation where you will never have sufficient water for the challenges that are ahead of us in the foreseeable future.”
Historically, the Peninsula has been served by two sources of water: the Carmel River and a local underground aquifer (the Seaside Groundwater Basin). The Monterey Peninsula Water Management District regulates the resources, while California American Water Company distributes water to customers. But sources are limited, not just by availability alone but through regulatory oversight.
For years, the Peninsula’s water supply has been restricted by the State Water Resources Control Board, which – in 2009 – slapped a cease-and-desist order on any additional water hookups because of over-pumping from the Carmel River. Needing additional water to support development, local officials have tried to get the order rescinded, but to no avail. Without revocation, localities are scrambling to find other sources of water outside of what’s historically supported the area.
The urgency of diversifying sources is apparent now more than ever, as Peninsula cities work to meet state-required construction goals.
Through a process called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA), cities and counties across the state are given targets every eight years for how much housing – split into different income levels – that they need to satisfy projected lodging needs for their communities. Though the process doesn’t obligate local governments to build out the aspirational housing, it does mandate that they demonstrate appropriate zoning, development regulations and policies to support homebuilding goals.
Monterey has been tasked with planning for 3,654 homes over the next eight years, including nearly 2,000 low income units. Moreover, city officials have stated that they don’t want to just do the bare minimum with planning, but put a concerted effort into building out imagined units. That kind of development needs water, and a lot of it – a lot more than Monterey currently has.
A long anticipated dilemma, some prospects are already out there to help fill the gap. One potential new source is Monterey One Water’s expansion of the Pure Water Monterey (recycled water) project, which, when complete, would provide an extra 2,250-acre feet of water to the Peninsula. There’s also Cal Am’s proposed desalination project, which was conditionally approved by the California Coastal Commission in November but is still years out from coming to fruition.
It’s in this web of needs, options and caveats that city staff started to think outside Monterey’s usual repertoire of water supply, they say. Though alternatives are on the table, whether they will provide enough water – in a timely fashion – for the kind of growth Monterey is not only planning for but wants to support over the next eight years is unclear. Wanting backups they could rely on, city staff asked, what else?
“Our city takes (the Regional Housing Needs Assessment) very seriously,” Uslar said in a call Wednesday. “We could elect to plan (for growth) then point to an insufficient supply of water on the Peninsula and sit on our hands. But that’s not what we’re doing. We’re looking at other options.”
In working with the Marina Coast Water District, staff think there could be a few. Chief among them: funneling water from Marina Coast, which is primarily supplied by the Salinas Valley Groundwater Basin, to Monterey customers.
Uslar said that though they are very early into fleshing the idea out, “it looks absolutely feasible that (the district) has sufficient water that they can provide us here in the Peninsula.”
What needs some figuring out is how Marina Coast-supplied water would actually get to Monterey. According to Uslar, that will take bringing Cal Am into the fold. Because Monterey is mostly a Cal Am customer, Uslar says that to realize hopes of collaborating with Marina Coast, the utility company would need to agree to wheel in water from the district into its pipes that service the city.
“Cal Am is for sure a player here,” Uslar said. “They need to be approached and negotiated with. Are they willing to transport the water, and at what cost?”
Wheeling water aside, other options staff suggested Tuesday night included securing additional water from Marina Coast to support development of Monterey’s former Fort Ord properties. Staff even suggested the city take advantage of burgeoning plans by Marina Coast to revamp its old desalination plant on Reservation Road.
Opportunities abound, the City Council welcomed continued partnership with the district Tuesday night.
“I think we’re in a situation where we have to pursue every possible water source solution and this seems like a very viable one,” Councilman Alan Haffa said.
Receiving general consensus support from the council, staff can start to meet formally with partners – Marina Coast and Cal Am, first and foremost – to see how far aspirations can go, Uslar said.
“There’s a lot of work ahead of us, but we feel that these are all challenges in the general environment of pro-affordable housing and increased supply of housing that will get a lot of political attention and pragmatic solutions,” he said.
